Vox(43)

“I’ll go,” Patrick says.

I wait for the ding of the bell and think about Poe with his scar and his ex–Special Forces mien and his eerie silence. They won’t be silver or golden bells for me tonight, but iron ones.

Oh fuck.

Now I see them coming inside, uniformed and armed with black devices, walking over the polished hardwood of my house, leaving scuffs and tracks. I see Thomas and Reverend Carl and other men, one carrying a small box with a counter set to zero that will snap on my wrist like an iron shackle. I see the television cameras and the news reporters, all flashing and straining to catch a glimpse of the former Dr. Jean McClellan, now destined to a life of silence and labor in the fields of Iowa, the fisheries of Maine, the textile mills of Alabama. Subsequent to a public shaming, of course.

Steven, I think. What have you done?

They won’t go after Lorenzo. I know this. The follies of men have always been tolerated.

Sonia comes running into my room, eyes glowing. The boys’ footfalls move in the other direction, into the main part of the house, where Patrick has gone.

“It’s okay, baby girl,” I say, taking Sonia into my arms. “It’s okay.”

But it’s not okay. Nothing is okay as I sit here with my back to the bed frame, rocking my daughter, waiting for the inevitable doomsday clang of the doorbell.





THIRTY-FIVE




Five horrible minutes pass before Patrick’s footsteps come running back down the hallway.

“It looks bad,” he says. “Whatever it is, it looks bad.” His face is a map of worry, all lines on a parchment-pale landscape.

But the doorbell hasn’t rung.

I pull myself up, scoop Sonia into my arms, and follow Patrick to the kitchen. The parade of vehicles is still in the street, still screaming their sirens and polluting the night with blue and red. Six men stand guard on the front porch of the Kings’ house, two more at the back door.

It’s not me, I think. It’s not me. It’s not me. It’s not me.

A woman’s scream pierces through, all the way into our kitchen, and I risk a look out the window.

Leo moves to turn on the light.

“No. Keep it off. Keep it dark,” I say.

What could Olivia King have done?

If someone you knew—maybe even someone you really love—did a shitty thing, would you rat them out?

And then I realize these men are here not for Olivia but for Julia.

I turn away from the window. Here’s Patrick, next to me, still a ghoulish pale. Sonia I’ve sat on one of the barstools by the island. Sam and Leo stare at the scene next door through rounded eyes the size of Frisbees.

Only Steven isn’t here.

Outside, the screaming has gotten worse. Olivia—I think it must be Olivia of the pink head scarves and pink Bibles and empty measuring cup in her hand—has unleashed pure hell.

“You can’t take her! Evan! Do something! For fuck’s sake, do something instead of standing there with your fucking hands in your fucking pockets and watching. Kill them. Shoot the motherfucking bastards. Tell them it wasn’t her fault! It wasn’t—”

Her tirade is interrupted by a pained wail, but only for a moment, a slice of a second. Then she’s back at it, half screaming, half wailing while two men haul Julia King out of the house, while Evan stands silently by with his hands in his pockets and the porch light casting a yellow glow on his face.

Before Patrick can stop me I’m out the back door of our house, ignoring the May rain that’s started falling, sloshing with bare feet across our driveway and into the Kings’ yard.

“Stop it! Take her counter off!” I scream.

Every head except Olivia’s turns toward me.

Olivia continues on, begging and sobbing now. “Please don’t take her. Please. Take me instead. Please.” Each word is interrupted by the sickening zap of an electric charge and a wail.

“Take the fucking counter off her!” I scream again.

“Go back inside, ma’am,” a voice says. I recognize it as that of Thomas of the dark suit and even darker soul. Then, to one of the others, he says, “Put her in the truck.”

They mean Julia, who hasn’t said a word. Not yet. When she turns under the wan glow of the porch light, her face is a complete blank. She’s in shock. Around her left wrist is a wide metallic cuff. Julia is about to join the supermarket women, and Jackie, and god only knows how many others in their twisted version of solitary confinement. Zero words per day, girlies. Let’s see how long it takes you to fall into line.

I’ve never much cared for Olivia, but my feet take me farther into her yard, over to the bent and convulsing body in its peach satin nightgown, now sticking to her like a film, as mine is to me. From sweat, it must be, since the Kings’ porch is covered and the rain isn’t driving. Thomas motions to one of the other men, and he steps toward me, hand poised like a starfish next to the weapon on his belt.

“Go home, ma’am. Nothing to see here.”

“But I—”

The starfish hand moves an inch closer to his belt.

Now I’m witnessing the single most terrible event of my life as Julia King is led from the porch, away from her mother, and toward the dark van. The man escorting her, which is really to say holding her limp frame semi-upright, reads her rights.